Surveys give staff the opportunity to feel listened to and provide feedback on key areas of their work. It has now been made a requirement for NHS Trusts to collect quarterly staff survey data (the NHS People Pulse survey can be used for this).
Examples of surveys:
- NHS Staff Survey - NHS staff are invited to take part in the NHS Staff Survey on a yearly basis. It gathers views on staff experiences in key areas including: appraisal and development, health and wellbeing, staff engagement and involvement, raising concerns.
- NHS People Pulse - Designed to take five minutes to use, the NHS People Pulse survey asks employees how supported, informed, motivated or anxious they feel and what support would make the biggest difference to their experience at work.
- Culture Assessment Tool (CAT) - A digital questionnaire that all CNWL NHS staff are invited to complete. It takes approximately 15 minutes and measures the aspects of culture directly related to performance, quality of care and service user satisfaction.
- Skills for Health Survey - Skills for Health is a not-for-profit organisation who survey employers and employees within the health and care sectors, capturing their views of current workforce skills and competencies needs. This year’s Skills for Health Survey focuses on the following themes: COVID-19, flexible working, skills and training, changing workforce, organisational development, equality, diversity and inclusion.
- BMA burnout questionaire - This confidential questionare by the British Medical Association can help staff members screen themselves for symptoms of burnout. It helps to identify feelings and experiences that they may have about their work, so that they can get a feel for whether they might be vulnerable to burnout.
- High response rates help to ensure that survey results are representative of the trust/organisation. Methods for improving response can be found here.
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The key to keeping staff engaged in surveys (and avoiding survey fatigue) is taking action on the information gathered. This year, the results of the NHS Staff Survey led to the development of the People Promise: to work together to improve the experience of working in the NHS for everyone.
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Creating your own surveys – Some organisations/trusts may wish to take questions from existing surveys or write their own questions to better understand the experiences and needs of their staff (this can be done via Survey Monkey)
Recognising the increasing pressure on NHS and Healthcare workers, the Hounslow Consortium created a Wellbeing Survey for staff working in primary care services.
The survey (completed via survey monkey) included questions from the NHS Staff Survey while all responses were anonymous. The survey aimed to measure staffs’ current level of physical and emotional wellbeing as well as assess how staff felt they could best be supported. The feedback (currently still in collection) will allow the team to design support specifically tailored to identified needs.